Twice Before Friday
by VickyVicarious
Summary: Ezekiel's perspective of the showdown with the devil in "And The Infernal Contract." (Ezekiel Jones doesn't do easy.)


Stone and Cassandra are laughing.

They're looking at the devil and laughing, the gas is going to their heads and they're not sure if it's real, and Ezekiel's walking closer and staring hard because he's not sure if it's yet either.

"Hey," Stone says, "Am I the only guy that sees that guy?"

Ezekiel squints a little harder.

"Yup," Cassandra says. "Nope. Yeah. No that's guy's real."

"So very real," agrees the devil. He's smiling. Ezekiel notices he's smiling. "And that was a good try." He points at the gas thing, the spinny thing they couldn't spin, the thing they broke, the uh the valve wheel.

"It was more than just a try," Cassandra slurs confrontationally, stumbling forward. Ezekiel follows slowly. He's still looking at the devil. "The gas stopped getting out."

"Well, sadly, even if you have stopped this explosion, the - the power of the contract will…" the devil's not smiling but he's smiling inside. Ezekiel can tell. He looks like Ezekiel feels when he's picked someone's pocket and they don't know yet and he hasn't told them yet and he's smiling but he's not smiling outside. He keeps moving forward. The devil's still talking: "simply cause a train to derail or a, a dam to burst."

"What?" Cassandra asks. She sounds sad. Ezekiel's not a fan of that.

"Sam needs to be a hero," says the devil, "the contract will make that happen one way or another, a- oh? These fumes will kill you all very soon." He sounds like he's being concerned but he's not being concerned. Ezekiel can tell cause he's watching him very closely. The devil looks fuzzy so he has to watch very very closely so he is watching very very closely.

His head hurts.

Then the devil is smiling smiling and stepping forward and says, "Perhaps we could make a deal?"

Oh.

Ezekiel should have seen that coming.

He steps closer, past Stone and Cassandra and up to the devil, and has to grab onto a pipe not to fall over but his eyes never leave the devil, he feels kind of… mad.

Everything's quiet for a little bit. Well not quiet because the gas is hissing and hissing but no one is talking and Cassandra is swaying woozily. Normally Stone would catch her or Ezekiel would catch her, but Stone is also dizzy and Ezekiel is busy watching the devil very very closely and also hanging on to the pipe. Cassandra leans on the wall and slides down to the floor.

"You could all walk out of here right now," the devil says, and walks past Ezekiel without even looking at him, which is kind of insulting. Ezekiel wants to pick his pocket but that sounds like it would take a lot of muscle movements and he thinks his muscles don't want to move. The devil is talking directly to Cassandra. "I summon a contract, you sign it… all is well."

Ezekiel can't see the devil's face that well anymore because the devil is past him. He's being ignored and he hates that. Cassandra looks like she is going to sleep but she's actually probably dying and he hates that too. Stone should throw an axe at the devil or something right now.

"If you…" Cassandra takes a deep breath and it sounds painful. Ezekiel's used to controlling his breath, slow and quiet and thin in small spaces so maybe he's doing better than her, but it can't be by a lot. He also wants to breathe more. "If you think we're actually gonna make a deal with the devil then…"

She looks like she's having trouble. Ezekiel should help her out.

"Just to save our own lives," he adds, his voice slower than he meant it to be, and the devil turns to look at him. Ezekiel likes his own life. He likes it a lot. And he likes Cassandra's own life and Stone's own life too, but…

"You must not have met any Librarians," Stone rasps, and Ezekiel thinks that's an excellent point. That's well said words.

"Oh, but I've met a lot of human beings," laughs the devil but it's like earlier when he wasn't smiling but he was smiling? Now he's laughing but he's not really. "I'm offering you a _fair deal_."

"No, sorry man," Stone says, and gives Ezekiel this little nod. "I think we like our souls right where they're at."

That's funny. Not the souls thing, the nod. Stone nodded like he thinks Ezekiel understands, like he thinks they're friends. Like when he said earlier that Ezekiel was turning into a good guy and Ezekiel stole his wallet and used the money inside to buy an ice cream cone.

It was pistachio. Pretty good.

"You understand that you will die here," tries the devil, not getting it. "Or you can sign the contract, any one of you can sign the contract."

He turns and points to Ezekiel, who shouldn't have laughed because now it's harder to breathe. "You, Ezekiel. You could travel the world. Every inch of it. Go places no one has ever seen before."

Ezekiel looks up at the devil. He wonders if the devil knows about the Annex doors.

"You're a _swashbuckler_ , Ezekiel, in a world of accountants," the devil says, correctly. Actually Ezekiel was going to be a pirate next Halloween. He was planning to steal the outfit from a museum and see who realized it was real first and if they got it right give them a gold doubloon from a lost sunken ship and watch them figure that out too and bug him for the location. Stone would probably get really happy and mad about it, if they weren't going to die right now.

"You really could save the world," says the devil happily. "Every week. Twice before Friday."

Ezekiel thinks about that.

He's still thinking about it when the devil turns away from him and goes to Cassandra: "And you, Cassandra. You could be healthy again. You could live a long life, of science and magic, without that death-clock ticking away in your brain." Ezekiel's still thinking about saving the world twice before Friday but he does also think that death-clock isn't as good as brain-grape, but having it gone would be good whatever it's called. "You could usher in a golden age of mathemagics… and so much suffering."

That doesn't sound right to Ezekiel. He might have heard wrong. It's hard to think very well. But also the devil could have been wrong, about what Cassandra would want. It makes sense because he was wrong about what Ezekiel would want. Ezekiel's been thinking about it and he's decided that's not what he would want.

"You, sir," the devil says, looking up at Stone. "You could defeat Prospero. Save your friends." Stone looks at Ezekiel and Ezekiel looks back. He shakes his head no, the devil is wrong, that's not what they want. "Yes, yes - yes? Now do you see what I'm offering?"

The devil's offering something easy.

The devil's offering something like Stone offered Ezekiel earlier, before he called him a good guy and Ezekiel stole his cash and bought a pistachio ice cream cone.

The devil is wrong.

"Maybe one of us should take the hit," Stone says. It doesn't make sense. Ezekiel shakes his head again, closes his eyes. He's feeling really tired but he doesn't want to go to sleep with Stone being an idiot.

"Maybe we find something in the Library after," Cassandra offers, wincing, and now Ezekiel's mad at her too. He hasn't been mad at her in a while, not even when she got all slaphappy earlier just because he was using air quotes, which was also kind of stupid. Not like this though, a nicer kind and less dumb.

"Exactly!" says the devil, and he's really really happy, and Stone's falling to the floor too, but Ezekiel's holding on to his pipe and it's keeping him kind of upright. He sort of feels like that's important.

"Let me summon a contract," the devil says, and he's super happy, and it should be obvious that's not a good thing, "and I will have my first Librarian."

The devil vanishes in fire and Ezekiel hangs on to his pipe and blinks a lot of times. Cassandra and Jake are slumped on the floor.

He wants to tell them they're being stupid. They should listen to him, he's a genius after all. He's smart enough to know that easy is stupid, that easy isn't worth it, that easy is really really _boring_ and he's Ezekiel Jones and he likes hard, he likes impossible. He doesn't like guarantees, they're no fun.

He likes saving the world twice before Friday only if one time is a mistake and the other is by the skin of his teeth, and only if there's also a third time that he doesn't manage to save, just delay. He likes -

Ezekiel's eyes are closing and his grip on the pipe is loose and he is sliding down to the ground, which is fine because that's probably more comfortable than standing up anyway. He's also thinking that he likes when people call him a good guy and he can steal their wallets. He likes when people are there to fix what he can't with a bit of magic greenish-bluish grout cleaner.

He likes being unbeatable Ezekiel Jones, but he also likes when Cassandra is legend, and he likes it most when they are both _we are legend_ , when Stone is legend too. And Baird, and Jenkins and Flynn even if he made Ezekiel pick up Thor's lightning-bolt in a bunch of old stuff.

Ezekiel Jones is fantastic on his own thanks, but his eyes are shut now and sleep is a really good idea and also it's new but he's pretty sure he likes _we_ a lot better than _me_.

And the devil is wrong, and Ezekiel's right, and he's gonna tell Cassandra and Stone that they're being dumb after he takes a nap.

Hey. Is that Jenkins.

 **-xxx-**

Ezekiel doesn't say anything to Cassandra and Stone after he takes a nap. He does actually take a nap, but it's a safe, nonfatal one in the Annex and in a bed Jenkins got somewhere and with some really really gross medicine magic tea yuck.

He's tired and headachey still, not even in the mood to eavesdrop, so he lies down like he's been told and lies very still and takes slow deep breaths like he's thieving.

Today sucked.

He feels it when Jenkins tugs the blanket all the way up over him, though, and his eyes are still closed and the tea's still yuck and it's pretty embarrassing actually but he smiles. Snuggles his head a little closer in his pillow.

Ezekiel's not gonna say anything when he wakes up from his nap because it is embarrassing, and weird and new, and they both meant well anyway. Besides Baird fixed it so it was fine. And Jenkins carried them out which was good too.

Maybe he'll tell them next time, if he needs to. He really kind of hopes they figure it out on their own, though. Like he did.

Easy's boring, we beats me, it's not too complicated. He's _pretty_ sure they can figure it out.

He's pretty sure when they do they'll smile into their pillows too, and say no to every devil.


End file.
